How to disable --with-curlwrappers on php compile on my VPS?

I'm having trouble understanding how to turn off a php compilation flag on my VPS hosting. Here's the breakdown:

I'm trying to install Composer (a dependency manager for php) on my server as part of a Wordpress project. Using command line and ssh-ing into my server, I run the following command in my public_html directory to do so:

$ curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php

My console says the installation is successful, but includes this warning:

"PHP was compiled with --with-curlwrappers which will cause issues with HTTP authentication and GitHub.
Recompile it without this flag if possible"

I have checked the php.ini file located in my public_html directory as well as grepped the php.ini file in usr/local/lib/php.ini without any results - I can't seem to find where/how to turn off the --with-curlwrappers flag on build. Can you offer advice on how this can be done?

One other confusing aspect of this: if I got to my phpinfo() page for my domain, it says the "Loaded Configuration File" is php.ini in the public_html directory. However, if I run "php -i" while on ssh command line in the public_html directory, the "Loaded Configuration File" now reads "/usr/local/lib/php.ini". Why the difference?

FYI, I do have root access on my VPS. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.